Ken Hall Reports: 'Tis the season for dumb stories in the news

Maybe I've finally caught that case of Seasonal Affective Disorder that's been going around, or maybe I'm just in a lousy mood, but it sure seems there have been a lot of dumb news stories lately.

Ken Hall

Maybe I've finally caught that case of Seasonal Affective Disorder that's been going around, or maybe I'm just in a lousy mood, but it sure seems there have been a lot of dumb news stories lately.

A video of Marco Rubio, the telegenic senator from Florida christened as the savior of the Republican Party on the cover of Time Magazine, has been all over the cable news and late-night comedy shows because he took a drink of water while delivering the rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union address.

You can watch it in slow motion. You can hear the enhanced audio version with Wolf Blitzer's "Uh, oh" clear as a bell.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Rubio sip becomes as famous as the scream that cost Vermont Gov. Howard Dean any chance of winning the 2004 Democratic nomination.

He was rallying the crowd after a setback in Iowa and the way the microphone magnified his already hoarse voice made him sound demented.

Type in Dean's name in Google and the first item that comes up is the scream.

It could become as famous as the tears in the snow — the incident that cost Maine Sen. Ed Muskie his chance at the presidential nomination in 1972.

Muskie was angry and emotional and some reporters said they saw tears, not melted snow, running down his cheek as he criticized the Manchester Union Leader for attacking his wife's character.

Type Muskie into Google and crying is the second item that comes up. The first regards ibogaine, a natural substance that induces hallucinations and causes those who take it to act rather stiff.

Hunter S. Thompson, writing for Rolling Stone magazine after he got fired from the Times Herald-Record, speculated that Muskie was taking the drug and it accounted for his rather stiff demeanor.

Thompson made it all up, as he admitted, but that did not stop other allegedly serious journalists from persuing the rumor in print. And this was well before cable news got started.

Just goes to show that too many reporters have always been good at making something out of nothing, which is just as bad as those who make nothing out of nothing.

That example has been on display all week as camera crews and senior reporters flocked to Rome.

The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI has offered lots of opportunity for thoughtful reporting on the state of the Roman Catholic church.

Those are the kinds of stories that come from finding people who have studied and written about the church's history, recent and ancient, and offer guidance from that perspective.

Newspapers have been full of comments from those people. Networks have been full of reporters standing in the Vatican City square, endlessly repeating that the resignation came as a shock and that nobody knows who will be the next pope.

No kidding. And Chris Christie has a weight problem. And it might snow on the SuperBowl at MetLife Stadium next year.

Spring had better hurry up and get here.

thrkenhall@gmail.com

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